New Royal Caribbean vegan menu finally here!
[Updated post on Aug 7th with menu images] On August 1st (2019) I received a short e-mail from Royal Caribbean US sales team to notify me about a new Royal Caribbean vegan menu going live. I was excited but cautious, so I didn’t go public with the news straight away. Instead, I immediately replied asking for more detail to give my readers. When was this menu going live exactly? Is the new vegan menu for the full Royal Caribbean fleet? Are there any menu examples to show? It has taken Royal a week to respond, with more exciting info. I am pleased to share with you the new Royal Caribbean vegan menu of 2019!
The vegan offerings in the past:
It used to be that Royal Caribbean fleet improvised meals for every vegan guest (see my 2016 review of dining onboard Vision of the Seas). In the last couple of years, some of the Royal ships developed their own unofficial vegan menus. Below you can see an example of a recent (Summer 2019) vegan menu from Ovation of the Seas. Apparently, on this sailing Ovation couldn’t offer a 7-day vegan menu and rotated menus after three days. Imagine if omnivore cruisers had just three days worth of meal options? At least with this new official fleetwide vegan menu, no Royal Caribbean cruiser is facing that problem.
Disappointingly, this menu above also offers sherbet as dessert. Sherbet is not the same as sorbet, it is not just an alternative spelling. Sorbet should always be dairy-free (but can contain egg). Sherbet is a sorbet-like frozen dessert that contains dairy for extra creaminess. Either whoever wrote the menu has mislabelled the dessert item, or doesn’t realise that sherbet isn’t vegan – unless using plant cream instead. In which case it would be best if they labelled the menu to say so. But what about desserts on the new menu?
The new Royal Caribbean vegan menu:
It is so exciting that Royal Caribbean is finally responding to the rising demand for plant-based vegan options with a fleetwide menu. The surprise menu announcement from August 1st states that a 7-day dinner menu will be available ON REQUEST, in the main dining room across the Royal fleet. This menu became available on the next turnover day (when the ship returned to her homeport). Considering it has been a week since the launch, most ships should hopefully be live with this new vegan menu.
[Sep 2019: Just received a report from a friend onboard Navigator on the Seas, that it doesn’t serve this new vegan menu. They have their own vegetarian/vegan menu, still require 24h notice on dishes and staff aren’t entirely helpful]
Unfortunately, Royal Caribbean have not released any images of dishes served, but I am pleased to share with you the full, 7-day vegan menu!
Seven days of vegan dining on Royal Caribbean
Dinner menu day 1
After the MDR couldn’t make me banana nice cream on my last RC cruise (how hard is it to blitz frozen banana?) this tahini banana soft serve sounds just like the thing. Could be improved by some dairy-free choc chips, surely. Happy to see beans for protein source too on the main courses.
Vegan dinner menu: day 2
How excited am I about the vegan cheesecake? My highlight of the whole seven-day menu… No-egg omelette is no doubt chickpea flour/gram flour and again good for protein. Whether the bolognese has any soy mince or other plant-based mock meat, remains to be seen. Surely there is something there other than just tomato sauce and some vegetables – if you try it onboard, do tell what it contained!
Vegan dinner menu: Day 3
Tacos, tofu and choc-chip cookies? Sounds heavenly – also means there may be choc chips onboard that could be used in that banana soft serve….?
Vegan dinner menu: Day 4 
So there is soy yoghurt for cooking – might this mean that soy yoghurt will also be available at breakfast time in the Windjammer? I shall try to find out!
Vegan dinner menu: Day 5 
I do like my eggplant/aubergine, especially vegan eggplant parm.. but a burger? When Impossible or Beyond Burger would offer an amazing ready-made mock meat burger patty. One can only hope either burger patty becomes available as a specialty dining option. Together with vegan cheese. Meanwhile.. eggplant it is.
Vegan dinner menu: Day 6 
Vegan dinner menu: Day 7 
I’m a little confused again by the vegetable pakora main course. Those are normally served as a starter where I am from, perhaps with some dipping sauce maybe. Never as a main course. The description does not state if there is salad or rice to go along with the pakora. Again, if you order this, do share what you were given!
I am so excited to see that the menu offers some choice – with two options each for an appetiser and the main course. Actual vegan desserts too, and not just the dreaded sorbet. Or a potentially non-vegan sherbet, as offered on the ship menu above (the pre-vegan menu).
I am so looking forward to sampling this menu – even if there is no Beyond Burger listed. What do you think – is this new Royal Caribbean vegan menu better than what Royal offered before (have served you)? And how would you improve this new vegan menu, if you had your say?
What about the Windjammer buffet?
In addition to the evening dining room menu, plant-based options will be served in the Windjammer buffet too, say Royal Caribbean.
It shall be interesting to see if those buffet dishes will be clearly labelled, as I found onboard my last Princess cruise. But as Royal Caribbean steps up the game with this separate vegan MDR menu, I would imagine clearly-labelled Windjammer provision must follow too.
No vegan spread was available on my two Royal Caribbean cruises as a vegan. I used jam, or fruit, to moisten my breakfast bread. I have now queried with Royal Caribbean to see if this has changed, and if other vegan-friendly items have now been made available. An update will be posted here as soon as I hear anything.
This recent news about a Royal Caribbean vegan menu finally bringing easy dining choices to the Main Dining Room (MDR) is so welcome. Such a win for accessibility. Not just for vegans but for those with egg and dairy allergies too. This menu makes life easier for ship crew as well.
If you are on Royal shortly, do get in touch! Please share your experience of the Royal Caribbean vegan menu with me and the readers of this blog. Sharing is caring, after all. Happy vegan cruising!
PS. If you liked the above post and think it’s cool that there is a vegan cruise blog out there sharing plantbased cruise info, please consider giving me & my blog a vote in the Wave Awards 2020. This is UK cruise industry annual awards by World Of Cruising magazine. You can WIN A CRUISE holiday just for voting. I have been nominated in the BEST CRUISE BLOGGER category for the third year running and am hoping for my fellow vegans’ support.
Please do vote, am so chuffed to be included. If you scroll down, you’ll find me at the end of the drop-down menu of all nominees. I know I won’t win as vegan cruising is still a niche, but it’s great to see the industry recognising vegan cruisers – and a vegan cruise blog.
Cast your vote on the Wave Awards site for the chance of winning a 7-day Aegean cruise!
This sounds like a decent enough menu with choices. I was recently on Oceania where they now have a “plant-based” menu. They only had a “choice” of only one soup, salad, appetizer or entree at dinner in the main dining room. One, in my opinion, is not a “choice”. What they served was mostly very good to excellent and upscale. Some of it was worth ordering two servings. And they had sorbet or plant-based “ice cream” every day. Some days there was also dessert.
I would probably be happy enough with this menu. I give them kudos for getting on board with vegan. (Pun intended)
You’re absolutely correct. It’s great Oceania has a menu but the choice is take it or leave it. With this menu Royal at least offers a choice for two of the courses and you can probably still request the Indian curry option made vegan if you didn’t fancy what’s on the menu. Oceania are top notch otherwise but it is a premium product – I’d be keen to sample RC’s big sister Azamara and their vegan menu. I’ll be onboard to see a ship so I’ll ask for copies. Still looking for a ship that has non-dairy ice cream… all I ever get is sorbet 🙁
I am glad to see this! I am a platinum member with royal Caribbean and the only thing ever lacking was the food! I have a cruise booked August 30th and cannot wait to try out this menu!
I love this!! Now I am really excited for my first RCCL cruise in October!
Since our latest adventure of the seas cruise was such a huge disappointment it will be a long time before we consider trying rc again. It was hard to find any options to eat unless we were willing to eat the same thing everyday. Carnival was way above and better with many more options so that tweaks could be made. I’m glad they are making strides in the right direction and I hope it helps others. Our dining room staff was so behind in time that even though there was vegan creamer for the coffee it was such an inconvenience to the waitstaff to ask for some. As well as everyone at the table. They need to have some of these items accessible or it’s the same as not having them. The windjammer would happily make a veggie burger if asked. We appreciated this and did this lots of days. They had a custom rice noodle bar that they would prepare for you. So excited. Both times my daughter had a piece of meat in hers. Mine was so spicy every time I couldn’t eat it. So many ways this cruise could of been more enjoyable when it came to food.
This menu sounds quite nice. I always wish they’d use things like tofu, seitan, fake meat etc. I don’t get excited about eggplant and stuff. But that’s just my taste. I like a bit of unhealthy stuff, especially on holiday. I’m on Navigator next month so I’ll see if I can get some menus for you x
I totally get it, I’d rather have a NoBull bleeding mock meat burger than a mashed vegetable patty. Products like Linda McCartney’s range (or US Gardein brand) are so common… Swedish Oumph! is gluten free too. Vegetables are cheaper and not every vegan eats mock meats but many do and those omnis who fancy a meatfree day would welcome seitan or soy/pea protein alternative. There are two mains each day, why not have one a wholefoods plantbased dish and the other the mock meat one? Tofu would be fine too, as long as they know to press & marinate it – no chef would serve undercooked/unflavoured chicken so why do they think tofu can be served as it is..? Still, this is a HUGE improvement. Only Costa cruises rivals this in size/range
Thanks for sharing, there looks like there’s plenty of things on this menu that I would be tempted to try – the appetisers in particular look good. I think it’s great that Royal Caribbean are recognising the need to offer a menu for vegan cruisers. I hope that this will become common place on other cruise lines in the future.
Thanks for sharing Sanna, the menu looks quite nice and agree that mock meats and tofu etc make a nice change to vegetable substitutes, I am also not a fan of eggplant!
Moe lines will have to cater for cruises food choices and food intolerance so its certainly a step in the right direction.
Am writing a short blog post on this and will share a link to this post.
Most things sound great but there are some options that are a bit weird. You can definitely tell it’s been made by someone who isn’t vegan and who doesn’t know the first thing about what vegan eat. The desserts were all pretty solid. I would enjoy trying all of the options.
Siobhan x
So agree with you. Apparently, quite a few of these dishes are by Youtuber vegans that someone else had recommended the chefs on one of the ships (they went in with suggestions to help the chefs cater). Am surprised though as a bit odd, some of them. And am still looking for protein sources on a few…
Wow, what a fantastic selection! It is so lovely to see puddings that aren’t dull such as fresh fruit on it’s own or sorbet – The toffee cheesecake sounds right up my street!!
Sammy x
https://bakeydoesntbake.com
Totally, loving the fact there are proper desserts though some of the mains or starters are a bit odd.. none of them gel really.. bit all over the place 😉 But, as long as there is vegan food I will be happy.